


Stop the Clock/Touch the Sky

by GretaRama



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Awkward First Times, Carla's perfect hair, F/F, Fem!Cecil and Carlos, Rule 63, Slooooow burn, Station Management - Freeform, The Not a Date, hooded figures - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-06
Updated: 2015-10-03
Packaged: 2018-04-02 09:17:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4054663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretaRama/pseuds/GretaRama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things are different in interesting ways when Cecil and Carlos are Cecile and Carla.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Station Management

“I don’t know about you, listeners, but I am _loving_ Carla’s new haircut,” Cecile growled into the microphone. “She is now absolutely rocking a stunning curly fauxhawk and it could not be more perfect.

Listeners, I’m not one to gossip, even if it does concern a local celebrity, but…I _am_ wondering who performed this haircut. I’m wondering who in our small community had the unsurpassed privilege of sinking her fingers into Carla’s raven-black tresses – not to ignore the dignified, if premature, touch of gray at her temples – and gently massaging her brilliant, perfectly shaped head with shampoo?

Whose hands worked conditioner through Carla’s glorious pre-Raphaelite mane, who let warm water trickle over Carla’s scalp, whose fingertips skimmed Carla’s delicate lily stem of a neck as she helped her to towel her hair dry? Who tilted Carla’s head gently from one side to the other and stared at her amazing, perfect face while sliding their fingers through Carla’s silky locks? Who skimmed away Carla’s tresses and rendered her into an angel of punk rock perfection with a pair of styling scissors?

Reports from two intrepid sources are that the lucky individual was Tessa the Stylist. Tessa, who likes sports, and has posters of combs. Tessa the Stylist seems to be the one whose fingers have penetrated Carla’s perfect hair. Tessa the Stylist. It is Tessa the Stylist at the corner of southwest 5th Street and Old Musk Road.

Now, don’t everyone go running over to Tessa’s - this is _not_ an easy look to pull off. Carla, with her dark, delicate facial features and goddess-like physique, looks amazing, of course, but…hey. We can’t all be perfect.

Now, while I gather myself, let's go to traffic.

You know, why bother? It’s stopped. Traffic is stopped because of Carla’s perfect hair.” Cecile glanced over her shoulder as an ominous booming sound emanated from somewhere in the building.

“Now, for an editorial.

Do not even get me started on station management. Do not. If I start to go on about Station Management - which was not pleased with my discussion of their physical attributes and behavior, and is now threatening to shut down my show, or possibly my life, I don’t know…well, if I get started on that again I’ll probably just get in even more trouble than I’m already in, which seems to be a lot. So…just…don’t get me started.”

As she continued with the broadcast, Cecile could hear a thrashing and crashing from the direction of the management offices. She gathered the microphone and slipped under her desk.

“Um, I'm sorry dear listeners—we'll be back after this word from our sponsors.”

* * *

Cecile fled from the building less than fifteen minutes later, slamming the employee entrance behind her and sprinting across the parking lot. She skidded to a halt a few feet away from her car, heart pounding and breath coming in gasps. She leaned over, hands on her knees, catching her breath. When she looked up, she saw Carla leaning against the driver’s side door of her car. She stopped breathing.

“Hi Cecile,” said Carla. A look of concern crossed her face as she took in Cecile’s disheveled appearance. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Cecile managed, finally mobilizing her lungs and gulping air. “Fine. It’s just…” she waved a hand at the radio station. “Contract negotiations. Always a little…contentious.”

Carla touched a hand to her newly short hair and smiled. “Yeah, I heard.”

“You did?” Cecile was dismayed to hear her voice squeak. Her heart and lungs were finally catching up with the rest of her, but now she was so flustered and wrong-footed she wished she had just kept running. She stared at Carla’s lovely, lovely face and felt her own face go hot. “Oh.”

“Were you really broadcasting from under your desk?”

“Of course,” Cecile said, and then couldn’t think of anything else to add, so she just stood there.

Carla stepped away from the car, closer to Cecile. “I just wanted to make sure you got out of there okay,” she said. “And it looks like you did, so…” She paused about one foot from Cecile and smiled her glorious and unreadable smile again.

 _Ask her out to dinner!_ Cecile’s brain shouted, but faced with Carla – beautiful, perfect Carla – in the glorious, alluringly touchable flesh, she felt so inept she couldn’t manage anything but a gruff, “Yeah, yeah, I’m good.” She met Carla’s eyes briefly, blushed even harder, and looked away again.

“Good. I guess I’d better get back to the lab, then.” For an instant, Cecile thought Carla was about to ask another question, but then the other woman turned and made her way across the parking lot in the direction of her lab. “See you around, Cecile,” she called, as she disappeared beyond the range of the parking lot’s sodium vapor lights.

“Oh, god,” Cecile groaned, sinking into the driver’s seat of her car and covering her face with her hands. On the sidewalk in front of the lot, a hooded figure drifted by in the direction of the dog park, shaking its hood at Cecile.

“Yeah, that really couldn’t have gone worse,” the hooded figure said.


	2. The Moonlite All-Nite

It was months before she saw Carla again, and her nerves were vibrating as she pulled open the door of the Moonlite All-Nite Diner. She spied Carla sitting in a booth near the front window, her dark curly hair spilling over her forehead as she perused a brightly colored plastic menu.

Cecile took a deep breath and made her way over to the booth, sliding in across from Carla. _It’s not a date,_ she reminded herself. Carla had been very clear on that point. _Not. A. Date._

As soon as Carla looked up and smiled at her, though, it felt an _awful_ lot like a date. Cecile tried not to grin like an idiot, and they sat in silence for a few seconds before Cecile pulled herself together.

“Right,” she said, pulling a slip of paper from her pocket and sliding it across the table. “Those are the contacts you asked about. The sheriff, the mayor, pretty much everyone involved in local government.”

“Thanks,” Carla said, accepting the slip without looking at it. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure, of course.”

“On the radio yesterday, you said this _is_ a date.”

“Well, yes.”

“But I specifically said it wasn’t. I just wanted to meet to exchange information. I said I wasn’t calling for personal reasons.”

“Mm-hm.” Carla had such lovely soft features. Big soft eyes, delicately curved cheeks and chin, and her lips…well. Cecile rested her chin on her hand and sighed.

“So I’m a little confused, is what I’m saying. I mean, if you wanted to ask me out-”

“I know it’s not a date,” Cecile interrupted quickly, before an actual rejection could happen. “I do. I do know that. Sometimes, when I’m on the air…” the truth almost spilled out, _I get carried away, there’s nobody for me to talk but everybody, if I don’t say it on the air where would I say it,_ but she caught herself just in time. “…I occasionally say something without thinking.”

“Oh,” Carla looked a little surprised. “So…that was just an accident, then? A slip of the tongue?”

“Um,” Cecile said. The idea of slipping tongues was not making her any less flustered. “Well, yes. Pretty much. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be confusing.”

“So, you’re saying that you do _not_ want this to be a date?”

“You did say it wasn’t,” Cecile said, warily.

“Yes, I did say that,” Carla said. She seemed to be suppressing a smile. “Glad we cleared that up. So…what’s good here?”

“The coffee is tolerable. Eggs are a little hit-or-miss. If they have any visible pie, that’s usually safe, it’s baked by this little place in town, they’re actually pretty great.”

“Visible pie,” Carla said, thoughtfully. “That sounds pretty good,”

After they ordered and the waitress had brought out two cups of coffee and a slice of pie, Carla glanced at Cecile. “Did you hear back from anyone about the clock tower?”

“Oh,” Cecile said. “Well, no, not really. I did ask,” she added hastily. “It’s just that, like I said, it’s invisible, and constantly teleporting, so…” she held her hands out, palms up. “Naturally nobody’s seen it,” she said.

“How do you even know it exists? I mean, I could tell you that I built an invisible, constantly translocating house somewhere, and how would you know whether I did or not?”

“Do you always just _ask_ these kinds of questions?” Cecile asked. “Out loud? In public, or at home, or in your lab?”

Carla almost smiled until she saw the troubled expression on Cecile’s face. “Yes,” she said. “Asking questions is one of the things a scientist does.”

“Hmm,” Cecile said, sipping her coffee. “And…do you think that’s _wise?_ ”

“I do, yes,” Carla said. “So. About the clock tower?”

Cecile marveled at Carla’s bravery for a moment, then leaned across the table and said quietly, “There’s a watchman – how could he keep watch if the tower weren’t really there? And how would the clock tower bell sound if there were no clock tower bell?”

Carla’s dark brows lifted in surprise. “So people haven’t _seen_ it, but they’ve heard it?”

“Of course,” Cecile said. “Haven’t you? It rings at six minutes to midnight, midnight, three, six, nine, noon, and Doomsday. And of course, if there’s an emergency.”

“Huh.” Carla took a dainty bite of pie. Cecile tried not to look at her lush mouth, tried not to imagine how it would feel to kiss it, failed, blushed, and finally forced her gaze down to her coffee cup.

“This is really good,” Carla said. “Want a bite?”

Before she could respond, Carla had forked up a bite of cherries and crumb topping and held it up in front of Cecile.

“Um, no, that’s okay,” she said.

“Come on,” Carla said. “Just try it. You’ll like it. What, you only eat _in_ visible pie? Live a little.”

Their eyes met. Carla cocked one eyebrow and moved the fork a little closer. Cecile opened her mouth again, planning to say – well, actually, she had no idea what she was planning to say, and it didn’t matter, because Carla tapped her lip gently with the fork and suddenly she was eating pie.

Carla smiled and tilted her head.

“It’s delicious,” Cecile mumbled, once she had swallowed.

“You’ve got a little something…” Carla said, touching one finger to the corner of her lip.

“Oh,” Cecile said, dabbing at her face with her napkin. “Did I get it?”

“No.” Carla smiled and reached across the table, gently swiping her thumb across Cecile’s lower lip. Cecile thought she might faint.

“There,” Carla said. “All better.”

“Th-thanks,” Cecile almost whispered.

“Oops, almost time for me to get back to work. But listen, you asked about having someone from the team contribute to the Children’s Fun Fact Science Corner. Are you still interested?”

Cecile nodded wordlessly.

“All right then,” Carla said, removing a wallet from her coat pocket and setting several bills on the table. “Stop by the lab whenever you like and we’ll talk about it. Mind if I dine and dash?”

“No, of course not,” Cecile answered, wishing her voice didn’t sound quite so forlorn.

“Great. Well,” Carla paused, hands on the table, looking across at Cecile. Again, there was a sense of a question in the air, a significant pause of some kind. And again, Cecile’s brain was shouting orders, things like _Invite her to a movie!_ and _Ask if she’s free for lunch tomorrow!_ , but Cecile found herself absolutely tongue-tied and quite incapable of doing anything but longing. It actually hurt.

“See you soon, then,” Carla said, and strode out of the diner.

Cecile stared after her for a long moment, then finally turned back to the table. “Check please,” she whispered into her water glass. She lifted the tray of sugar packets and found the ticket. Something was printed on the bottom of it, underneath the total. Cecile squinted at it. It read,

_You are an idiot._

“You are not wrong,” she muttered, piling cash on top of the check and replacing it under the sugar tray. “You are not wrong.”


	3. One Year Later

Cecile tried to stop by the lab next to Big Rico’s, but as she approached it, two Sheriff’s Secret Police officers stepped out from behind a tall yucca plant in an overgrown landscaping bed and shook their heads.

“But…I need to get an interview about all the science things that have been happening lately,” Cecile protested. The two officers crossed their arms across their chests and stepped closer together.

“Carla is doing a segment for the show,” Cecile said stubbornly. The officers didn’t move. “Fine, I’ll just call her. This is ridiculous.” She pulled out her phone and began to dial.

“Look, she’s out along Route 800 with the other scientists,” said one of the officers. “You could try out there.”

“Actually,” said the second, pressing his listening device more firmly against his ear, “I think they’re on their way back now. You might as well wait, Miz Palmer.”

Cecile sighed and settled down on the edge of a large concrete planter, just barely in the shade of the low strip mall buildings. 

“That was too bad about Arlene,” one of the officers said, after a while. “My daughter is in the scouts. We’ll sure miss her.”

“Hmmm,” Cecile said, and felt her mind shrink back from the memory of Arlene Harlan like a poked snail retreating into its shell, but still didn’t know why the thought of the former Scoutmistress should be so troubling. “Do you ever wonder what happens to the memories we lose?” she asked. “Do you think they’re erased, like tapes, or just buried down deep, where they can’t hurt us anymore? Or is it more that they need to be buried where _we_ can’t hurt _them_?”

“I never wonder about that,” said the first officer. “Nope.”

“Me neither,” said the second, and both officers stepped away, resuming their posts.

Cecile sat quietly, thinking of absent memories, until Carla arrived about fifteen minutes later. She smiled when she saw Cecile.

‘Hi,” she said. She was carrying a large soda in one hand. “I hope you weren’t waiting long – if I’d known you were here, I wouldn’t have stopped for a drink, but it’s so hot.”

“Not too long, don’t worry about it,” Cecile said, watching as the other scientists presented their credentials to the SSP officers. They were all staring while pretending not to stare, and Cecile waved cheerfully at them.

“Sorry about that,” Carla said, rolling her eyes.

“About what?” Cecile asked. “Look, never mind. I actually just wanted to give you this,” she produced a small gold envelope.

“What is it?”

“An invitation. Go ahead, open it.”

Carla started to open it, when one of the other scientists whistled at them. Carla turned and shot a reproving look at the white-coated gaggle.

“What’s that about?” Cecile asked.

“Oh…they’ve been giving me a hard time ever since we got to town. They listen to your show, you know, we all do. A couple of them have been crushing hard on you because of your voice. They’ve decided you sound exactly like Lauren Bacall.”

“That’s nice to hear. When I first started out I didn’t think my voice was right for this kind of thing at all.”

“Well, you’ve proven yourself wrong,” Carla said. She paused with the envelope half open. “Actually, can I confess something to you?”

Cecile caught her breath. “Sure,” she said. “Anything.”

Carla took a long, slow sip of her soda, gazing at Cecile from beneath thick black eyelashes. “I think you have the nicest voice I’ve ever heard.”

Cecile barely managed to vocalize her response. “Really?”

“Yes. I listen to you all the time, Cecile,” she said, then, with a deep breath, she added, “You seem to think about me a lot.”

“I do,” Cecile said. “Carla, you must know…I think about you all the time.” Were they getting closer together? It seemed like it. Carla rested one hand on her arm, and she was so close Cecile could have tipped forward a few inches and kissed her. _Do not think about kissing her,_ she ordered herself.

“Lately,” Carla said. “I’ve found myself thinking about-”

“Carla!” It was one of the scientists. “There’s – oh, sorry, were you guys…” the woman trailed off awkwardly, stopping in her tracks about ten feet away, but not quite retreating. 

Carla took a full step away from Cecile. “What is it?”

“There’s some sort of disturbance over at the bowling alley. It’s something to do with that gigantic underground city under Lane Five. A few locals are organizing a militia to attack them, and – “

“What? Oh, for –“ Carla patted the pockets of her lab coat and retrieved her car keys. “Cecile, I’m so sorry, but I’ve got to go, this is…” She waved a hand in the direction of the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex, implying events of great importance. 

“It’s fine. Go ahead, we can catch up later,” Cecile said, forcing a smile.

“Thanks,” Carla answered, squeezing Cecile’s shoulder with an expression of regret, and she tore out of the parking lot in a cloud of dust and scientific intrigue.

Cecile, noting that Carla hadn’t gotten a chance to open the invitation to the one-year anniversary party she had planned, sighed as she got back in her car and rested her hands on the wheel.

Before she could even start the car, a horn sounded behind her, and she turned to find her nephew, Jason, waving at her from the passenger seat of a tan Corolla. She could make out Stephanie Carlsberg’s familiar form behind the wheel, and she sank lower in her seat.

“Aunt Cecile?” came Jason’s voice.

Cecile sighed again, sat up straighter and leaned out the window. “Hey Jason,” she said. “What’s up?”

“Was that the lady you like? The scientist lady?”

“Yes,” Cecile said, wishing she could stop blushing, knowing that thinking about it would only make it worse.

“Did you finally ask her out?” Stephanie asked, leaning around Jason. “It looked like it was going pretty well.”

“Oh for _god’s sake_ – “

Jason interrupted, “Stephanie says you should just woman up and ask her. I think she’s right.”

“Is _that_ what she says? Well, maybe Stephanie should spend more time focusing on her own interpersonal relationships and stop worrying about mine.”

“But you don’t _have_ any,” Jason said. “That’s what Stephanie says.”

Cecile’s mouth dropped open in outrage but no words came out. Before she could recover, the Corolla was pulling away.

“Bye, Aunt Cecile!” Jason waved as the car vanished into traffic.


	4. Houses That Don't Exist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I almost forgot I had more of this!

Cecile stood in a kind of shock, looking at Carla, her glorious hair floating around her face in flattering disarray; she felt like she'd experienced every emotion that it was possible to experience with mind or body. She had explored many variations of fear, for example – anguish, despair, terror, helplessness, anxiety, dismay, surprise, shock, and several others besides. Then there had been the awful, hopeless grief when she thought Carla had died.

Now, she felt exhausted and exhilarated and confused and delighted and impossibly, ridiculously hopeful. 

"I just wanted to see you," Carla was saying, and that she should be saying _this,_ something so hoped-for and impossible that every muscle in Cecile's body atrophied, and she feared she might slump in a useless heap onto the warm black asphalt.

"Yes, but why?" 

Carla, her face scratched, the front of her shirt blackened, shook her head and slipped off the hood of her car. "I'm trying to tell you why, you dumb idiot," she said. "Come here." She took Cecile's hand and pulled her close, close enough that their bodies were touching. 

"Here's why," Carla murmured, holding Cecile's face between her hands. "This is why." She stroked one thumb along Cecile's cheek, then, very slowly, leaned forward and kissed her. 

The lights above the Arby's weren't really like fireworks, Cecile thought, but they weren't _not_ like fireworks, either. 

She practically floated back to the station, and even now her body felt light, prone to giddy sensations, and perfectly incorrigible.

She leaned forward and spoke into the microphone. “One year later. One year since she arrived. She put her hand on my knee and said nothing, and I knew what she meant. I felt the same.”

Cecile suspected that she’d hear about this monologue from Station Management sooner or later, but she didn’t miss a beat. If she spoke it out loud, it would be real for everyone listening. If she talked about it, she was more likely to keep it in her memory forever.

As she shut down her equipment, a text tone sounded on her phone. It was from Carla.

_Good night, Cecile_

Cecile quickly texted back, _Good night._

* * *

The air conditioner in Carla’s car was kinder to the environment than it was to the people inside; the air blowing from the vents had ceased to be cool at least ten minutes earlier, now it just felt like a tease, promising coolness but delivering the same stale air at ever-decreasing velocity.

Cecile’s hair was stuck to her forehead and the nape of her neck, but she couldn’t bring herself to care about anything but her mouth on Carla’s mouth, Carla’s hands on her body, the way their breasts were pressing together between their bodies, the curve of Carla’s thigh under the palm of her hand. Both of them were breathing raggedly and it took a while for Cecile to realize that something was wrong. She was dizzy, breathless, so, so _hot_.

Cecile’s hands fisted in the fabric of Carla’s lab coat. “Carla,” she gasped. “I think I’m going to pass out from heat exhaustion.”

Without breaking eye contact, Carla reached to one side and rolled down a window. “Better?”

“Thanks,” Cecile said, and she closed the space between them again. Cecile was working herself up to asking Carla in. _Come inside_ , she thought dreamily. _Come inside. Just say it. Would you like to come inside? For some real air conditioning? Or a refreshing glass of orange milk, or vodka, or a makeout session on the living room floor, or even just some chanting, that would be fine…_ And she was sure, or almost sure, that Carla would say yes, God, the _noises_ she was making, those little, breathy moans, and the way her hips were -

Her thoughts were interrupted by the familiar buzz of Carla’s phone. She ignored it at first, but the buzzing sounds continued, followed by the faint ping that marked a new voice message. She could pinpoint the moment when Carla's attention began to slip, when her mind switched off the connection between her lips and Cecile's and rerouted all functions toward all the possible reasons for the phone call.

“You’d better get it. It could be important,” Cecile said. She wanted to grab the phone and smash it on the pavement. She wanted to kiss Carla, kiss her and kiss her until she forgot everything she knew about science, until she couldn’t think or worry or bring herself to leave. But it was becoming clear that with Carla, science would always be a priority. Maybe _the_ priority.

“It might be nothing,” Carla said, placing a brief kiss on Cecile’s lips, another on her cheek. But she did have to answer it, and it _was_ important.

“I’ve got to go,” Carla said, as soon as she ended the call. “It’s the House That Doesn’t Exist over in the Desert Creek subdivision, something about noises inside and a doorbell – I’ve told the rest of the team to let me know if there are any developments, and this sounds like something totally weird, like nothing I’ve ever heard of. Rochelle said the readings were off the charts.” She smiled regretfully at Cecile. “You don’t mind, do you?”

“No,” said Cecile, who minded very much. “I guess not. I certainly wouldn’t want to stand between you and a scientific emergency.”

“Thanks,” Carla said, her mind obviously racing forward whatever new discovery lay ahead. "See you soon, okay?"

“See you,” Cecile said, stepping out of the car. She stood in the parking lot, watching Carla drive away.

* * *


	5. Subways and Spires

Their next date never happened, due to the sudden appearance of the subway. “I’ve taken samples from hundreds of people who rode the subway today. It’ll take me all night to run them through the system,” Carla had said. When Cecile asked if she needed any help, she’d said no, and that she really needed to pay close attention to the gene sequencer.

Cecile spent several seconds in fervent envy of the gene sequencer.

Since she found herself at loose ends, she had gone to the Brownstone Spire, but all that got her was an hours-long blackout, a slow return to consciousness on the sidewalk outside her apartment, sore knees, bloodshot eyes, and no memory of what had befallen her. She sighed, brushed herself off, and went to bed feeling lonely and dissatisfied, which was at least comforting in its familiarity.

As they planned a makeup date for the following day, Cecile was wary. “Are you sure there won’t be any more science emergencies?”

“I’m afraid it’s in the nature of emergencies to be unpredictable, but I’ll do my best,” Carla promised. “See you after work?”

“See you then.”

And then the subway stop had appeared across the street from the studio. Cecile was sure she had missed their date, but when she stepped off the train at the same stop where she’d gotten on thousands of years earlier, only four minutes had passed in Night Vale. She was so relieved to have both made it home in time for the date and to have remembered that she had one, it didn’t even occur to her that Carla might stand her up. Again.

When Cecile got home, she did not find Carla waiting for her. Carla did not arrive ten minutes late, or thirty minutes late, or even an hour late. It soon became clear that she would not arrive at all.

Cecile wondered if her current mood, which she would have described as “tearful line between anger and heartbreak,” was the result of Night Vale’s new feelings delivery service, or a natural outgrowth of Carla’s neglectful behavior.

Her profound existential experience on the subway had given her some perspective on her life, although, like a dream, the thousands of lifetimes she had lived that afternoon were fading, withdrawing further into her subconscious the more she tried to think about them.

Still, some scraps of that earth-deep wisdom must have stuck. As she sat dejectedly poking her fork into the cold food on her plate, Cecile realized that regardless of whence they came, her feelings were legitimate. They were valuable, and they mattered, but she couldn’t hold Carla accountable for them. All she could do was share them with Carla, and hope that her not-quite-perfect, easily distracted scientist would care enough to try not to injure them again in the future.

She walked the few blocks to Carla’s lab, pausing near the large yucca plant, expecting interference from the SSP officers. She could only see one, though, and as Cecile approached the door, he waved a hand lazily and told her, “I got ‘self-destructive and reckless indifference to rules’ delivered this afternoon. Do whatever you want, I don’t care.”

She found Carla alone, seated at a table covered in beakers, Petri dishes, Bunsen burners, and small electronics, peering through the lens of a microscope.

“Hi Carla,” Cecile said.

“Oh! Hi, Cecile, you startled me.” Carla smiled. “We’re running some samples from the Night Vale Municipal Water system. There’s this one amoeba – I’ve never seen anything like it before – it’s super-aggressive and it’s devouring _everything_ it comes into contact with!”

“That’s…neat,” Cecile said, smiling wanly. Despite her resolution, her heart was hammering in her chest and she felt sick. Her voice shook when she asked, “Is that why you forgot about our date?”

“Our date?” Carla asked blankly. “But that’s not for hours, is it? I thought…” she glanced outside at the dark sky. “Oh, shoot.” She pulled her glasses down from the top of her head and set them on her nose. As she focused, her face grew concerned. “Cecile, I’m so sorry,” she said. “I lost track of time – there’s just so much to do and you know how I get absorbed in what I’m doing…” she gestured at the microscope.

“I know,” Cecile said. She stepped close to Carla and took her hands. “You could have just called. I’d have understood.”

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t even think. I just forgot. Completely.” Carla sounded amazed, as if she couldn’t quite believe it. 

“I know,” Cecil said softly, and while she tried not to let the pain show in her voice, it did anyway. She inhaled a shaky breath and continued. “Carla…you know how I feel about you – how I’ve _felt_ about you, all this time. I haven’t wanted to say anything because…well, because I’m afraid you’ll think I’m too demanding and you won’t want to be with me anymore. But when you miss our dates, or cut them short, or just don’t show up at all, and don’t even call…” she paused, met Carla’s eyes, “It makes me feel unimportant. Right now, I feel smaller than that amoeba.” She tilted her head toward the microscope. “I realize I’m not some groundbreaking scientific discovery, but I will need at least a little of your attention…otherwise, this just isn’t going to work. And I really, really want it to work.”

“Oh,” Carla looked stricken. “Cecile, no, no, no.” She stood and embraced Cecile, resting her head on the other woman’s shoulder. “You’re not unimportant,” Her hands caressed Cecile’s back. “I feel terrible,” she said. “Forgive me?”

“Of course,” Cecile whispered, weak with relief. “Just promise me you’ll try not to do it anymore?”

“I’ll do whatever it takes,” Carla said. “I’ll set an alarm – although…clocks. Um, I’ll designate an alternate contact for science emergencies, I’ll only answer every other phone call, I’ll...oh, I don’t know, but I’ll figure something out, I-” she broke off as Cecile stepped forward, took her face gently between her hands, and kissed her.

Cecile kissed her with all the force of the millennia she had spent in the subway that afternoon, with total abandon, slowly wrapping her arms around her, pulling her up hard against her own body.

“Carla…” Cecile whispered when they finally broke apart to breathe, “…is anything awful going to happen if you leave that amoeba on its own for a while?”

“Well…anything awful that happens will probably be limited to the Petri dish for now.”

“Good.” Cecile kissed her cheek, her neck, the edge of her ear. 

“What happened to you today?” Carla asked wonderingly. 

“I got on the subway,” Cecile answered. She saw a flicker in Carla’s eyes as she glanced over to her laboratory equipment, and smiled.

“You can test me later,” she said.

“But-”

“ _Later,_ ” Cecile repeated, and closed her mouth over Carla’s again. Carla made a small sound of half-hearted protest but it melted into a hum of pleasure, and soon she had twined her arms around Cecile, the test forgotten.

“Come on,” Cecile said breathlessly, a few minutes later. “Let’s get out of here.”


End file.
